3. General Strategies

AVDS strategy

Description: after setting up the group and doing your research about the state of racial equity at your specific institution, what are strategies one can take to actionably address areas of racial inequity at their institution?

Low-hanging fruit and easy first steps for addressing racial inequity:

  • Fill this section out with content from AVDS’ recommendations for inc racial equity at OHSU doc
  • Identify who at your institution is responsible for racial equity, this could be a Dean, office, department, program head, or some other institution. If it is not someone’s full time job to do racial equity work, advocate for a position solely dedicated to doing that work.
  • Ask for data about race in your institution. A place to start is an annual diversity report that tracks the racial makeup of students, post-docs, faculty and staff, as well as a detailed yearly report about racial equity related efforts made by your institution.
  • Another place you could ask for data, is data about the admissions practices in your program. For example, a formal evaluation of every rejected application from a PEER, could reveal discriminatory or exclusionary admission criteria.
  • Creating a Post-Bac program for PEERs .
  • Advocate for financial support of PEERs with creation of an award.
  • Require active anti-racism training for people in leadership positions and for students within a program. This could eventually be expanded to asking that any PI or faculty that actively interacts with trainees receive this training.

Data collection

  • See AVDS’ recommendations for inc racial equity at OHSU doc to fill out this section
  • Figure out what data your institution collects around racial equity (eg diversity of the applicant pool vs. who was interviewed vs. who was hired?) and ask that they publish an annual racial equity report that reports on these data

Working with other student or racial equity groups on campus

  • AVDS’ strategies are largely founded on building towards long-term change in a sustainable manner. People who are new to social justice work often burn out quickly by trying to solve all problems immediately, but AVDS believes there needs to be a lot of solid groundwork laid in order to truly address these issues and cause culture shifts. This slow approach may not align with other groups on campus, but that’s okay, you should respect that different groups may take different approaches.

Working with administration

  • Working with administration is difficult because they can quickly become defensive around issues of racial equity and institutions are primarily concerned with saving money and only taking steps that present the appearance of progress. However, AVDS believes that it’s best to first try to work with administration and not against them. If you can frame your asks in the context of mutual goals, you are more likely to receive their help. However, staying in the good graces of administration doesn’t mean sacrificing the principles of your group, so it can be a fine line to tread. Add more content here
  • Tips for presenting changes and new policies to admin: It is common for admin to focus on the details of a proposal and semantics in order to distract focus away from the main goal. For instance, they may try to dwell on how certain implementations of your proposal are unrealistic or won’t work, but remember that it is not your job to be doing any of this in the first place and the least they can do is handle implementation and logistics. In order to maintain focus on the central goal of your proposal, it’s good to begin your proposal by explaining that it is not meant to be a completely fleshed out plan as ideally the university should be paying professionals for this work and admin have a better idea of how to realistically implement policies anyway given that they have a more intimate understanding of the structure of the university while most others likely have only a very basic understanding (in fact, structures can be intentionally esoteric so that only those on the inside have any knowledge of which people to talk to in the chain of command in order to push for real change). The more polite way to communicate this is that the expertise of the admin is required to put the plan into action. As the discussion continues, don’t be afraid to repeat yourself if someone tries to shift focus.

Adaptability:

  • The strategies you take are likely to change over time depending on their success or failure at your particular institution. Different communities will be in different places along the path to becoming anti-racist (show infographic on the path to becoming an anti-racist instituion) and so your strategies will need to be appropriate to the current state of the culture as it grows. A common mistake that people make is to default to classic approaches to racial equity, many of which are not actually effective. Be open to creativity, critical assessment of your success, and reimagining your approach
  • The language in racial equity work is always evolving to more explicitly and appropriately frame the reality and complexity of white supremacy’s deep roots in society, the various manifestations throughout history, and how different groups are uniquely impacted, so expect your language to evolve as well and be conscientious about the true meaning behind words (put in example about URM vs PEER: PEER refocuses the narrative to highlight the systemic cause for underrepresentation). However, this does not mean that things always need to be perfect. For example, “BIPOC” is a relatively new term that many have adopted, but it has its limitations and not everyone necessarily agrees that it’s a useful term. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it: the important thing is to acknowledge the limitations and be open to changing your use of the term in the future as the discourse and your group’s understanding evolves.

Over time, be conscientious about how the internal structure, culture, and strategies of your racial equity group may perpetuate white supremacy culture:

  • Don’t be a part of the problem. Approach this work with the same values that you wish to imbue in the larger culture of your institution and communities
  • “Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture” from Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun

(add image credit for dRworksbook)

Add section on frameworks adopted from Emergent Strategy (Adrienne Maree Brown) and how this book contributed to AVDS’ vision - probably Luci or Antoinette can write this section